Israeli MK, AIPAC behind Senate bid to cut total number of Palestinian refugees

Israeli MK, AIPAC behind Senate bid to cut total number of Palestinian
refugees
Newly passed amendment requires State Department to specify how many
of the 5 million Palestinians who receive aid from the UN are refugees
who were personally displaced from their homes in 1948, and how many
are their descendants.
By Barak Ravid | Jun.12, 2012 | 1:18 AM | 18

Capitol Hill in Washington was rocked late last month when the Senate
Appropriations Committee approved an amendment requiring the State
Department, for the first time, to do a "count" of Palestinian
refugees.

The amendment required the State Department to specify how many of the
five million Palestinians who receive aid from the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency are refugees who were personally displaced
from their homes in 1948, and how many are descendants of those
refugees.

Known as the Kirk Amendment, after its sponsor, Senator Mark Kirk (R-
Illinois), considered one of Israel's strongest supporters in
Washington, the bill conceals within its 150-plus words a fierce
battle between Republican legislators and the State Department over
the United States' relationship with UN institutions.

Every year the United States allocates $250 million to UNRWA, which
provides food as well as health, education and employment services to
millions of Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the
West Bank. For years Congressional representatives have been trying to
reduce U.S. contributions to the agency, on the grounds that UNRWA was
born in sin and that its policies are anti-Israeli.

What is not common knowledge in the Beltway is that the Kirk Amendment
got its start in the Jerusalem office of MK Einat Wilf (Atzmaut ), who
toiled for months, together with AIPAC lobbyists and Kirk's staff, to
promote the change.

Last September, as the Palestinians prepared their unilateral bid at
the UN, Wilf met with representatives of the pro-Israel lobby in
Israel. "I asked them why they weren't doing anything about UNRWA,"
Wilf says, adding: "The answer I got was that figures in the Israeli
government had blocked such moves in the past."

Wilf met with senior Defense Ministry policy official Amos Gilad and
explained that she sought to end the agency's policy of giving refugee
status to successive generations of Palestinian refugees. "UNRWA's
activities perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead of
solving it," Wilf says.

In a letter he sent Wilf in January, Gilad set the boundaries for her
initiate, writing that the UNRWA budget should not be harmed , and
that "UNRWA plays an important role in aiding the Palestinian
population."

"One must prevent a circumstance which endangers the continued
transfer of these [UNRWA] services, services that align with Israeli
interests," Gilad added.

After Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Ron Dermer, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's foreign-policy adviser, gave their
approval to Wilf's efforts, she returned to AIPAC staffers and also
approached Steven J. Rosen, a former foreign policy director for the
organization who now works for a Washington think tank, to get things
rolling on Capitol Hill.

In April Wilf and Rosen met with Kirk's deputy chief of staff, Richard
Goldberg. Kirk is recovering from a stroke he suffered a few months
ago, and Goldberg is promoting the senator's legislative efforts.

After a preliminary draft of the bill was worded, AIPAC officials went
on board in an attempt to pass it, holding meeting with many of the
senators on the appropriations committee in an attempt to sway them
into supporting the legislation.

However, opposing the move were State Department officials, who went
as far as sending a harshly worded letter to the Chairman of the
Senate Committee on Appropriations Patrick Leahy.

In the letter, the State Department indicated that the United States
recognized the refugee status of 5 million Palestinians, and accepts
UNRWA's definition of refugee descendents as refugees themselves.

While the State Department's opposition succeeded in altering the
bill, it did not bring about its cancellation, with the legislation
eventually passed in the panel.

The amendment serves as a precedent since it represents the first time
that a Senate committee sets demands to the American administration
concerning UNRWA's through legislation, even if it's only the demand
to report.

Responding to the report, Wilf said that her position was that
"settlement building and the continued status of Palestinian refugees
are both obstacles to peace."

"I have nothing against the descendents of refugees and I'm not asking
them to give up of their dream of returning, but if we want a two-
state solution, UNRAW can't continue to aid an inflation of refugees,"
she added, saying: "It ends up harming peace."

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